1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method to automatically determine a rest phase of the heart in an examined person in an imaging device. The invention is used in particular (but not exclusively) in magnetic resonance systems; however, it can also be used in other imaging devices.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Given some acquisitions of heart images—in particular in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging—it is necessary to acquire the exposures when the heart is not moving, thus is in the rest phase. The determination of when this point in time is in the cardiac cycle is crucial for the resulting image quality of the image exposure, wherein the rest phase in the cardiac cycle should be used for the acquisition of additional images of the heart.
In the prior art it is known to generate a type of film sequence of the heart activity via acquisition of multiple images of the heart during a cardiac cycle. The operator of the imaging device can view this film of the heart movement after the measurement and establish via visual analysis when the heart is located in the rest phase. The operator previously had to determine this rest phase in the images himself. The following errors can possibly occur in this determination:
First, it is possible that the time for the rest phase of the heart is not selected precisely enough by the operator. Second, it can occur that imaging parameters determined from the rest phase are incorrectly adapted for the subsequent heart measurement. This can lead to a poor image quality and make a repetition of the measurement necessary, whereby the examination time of the patient in the imaging device is unnecessarily extended.